Someone screamed.
For a blurry moment, half asleep and half awake, Jame thought it might have been herself.
She had dreamed again that she sat on the hearth of the over-heated Lordan's chambers, drinking and laughing drunkenly with that sly Randir, Roane. A servant had gone to fetch "dear little Gangrene" from the dormitory below. Anticipation stirred in her gut, and lower down. It was a long time since she had indulged in the old, sweet midnight games with her darling little brother. The poor fool probably thought he was safe here at the college.
Ha. You are my meat, boy, and Father has given you to me to devour, just as he will all the Kencyrath with his death. May it be soon. I am empty, and I hunger.
A hesitant footstep on the threshold and there he stood, flanked by two guards, the boy Ganth Grayling with sick terror on his face. Out of his eyes, however, stared someone else, as she did out of Greshan's. Sweet Trinity. Torisen.
Then had come the scream that had woken her, but not from either of them.
From below, Jame heard Vant's voice raised in a shout of exasperation. She grabbed the first clothing that came to hand, a long-tailed shirt, and pulled it on as she went quickly down the central stair to the second floor with Jorin dashing on ahead.
The dormitory was divided into two sections. To the left, as one faced the square, were the ten-commanders' individual rooms. To the right, each squad slept in a canvas cubicle rather like camping out inside, except that during the day the partitions were folded back against the walls. On a hot summer night like this, Jame would have expected them to be left open to catch any stray gasp of cool air. However, the Kendar apparently suffered less from extremes of temperature than the Highborn, for which she envied them. If only it would rain!
As she threaded through the canvas maze, pulling her long, black hair free of the shirt and letting it spill loose over her shoulders, Jame heard sleepy voices within raised in protest:
"Not again."
"Let us sleep, can't you?"
"Somebody, please, gag him with a dirty sock."
A scowling, tousled head popped out between canvas flaps. "Do you mind . . . oh!"
"Go back to sleep," Jame told him, and went on toward a murmur of voices. It came from the quarters closest to the southern fireplace, a position of honor held by her own ten.
"If you can't keep your filthy nightmares to yourself," Vant was saying with a kind of throttled fury, "go home. We don't need your sort here."
He spoke to the new cadet, Niall, who was sitting up in bed, knees clasped tightly under his chin. Thin and quiet by day, he looked gaunt and haunted by candle-light, and he was shivering. The rest of Jame's ten had gathered around him. Brier, as usual, held aloof but watchful in the background.
"You leave him alone, Ten," snapped Mint, to a mutter of agreement from the others. She sat on the edge of the cot and put an arm around the boy's hunched shoulders. "If you'd seen what he saw, you'd probably wet your bed every night."
Before Vant could answer, they all became aware of Jame.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"Nothing that need concern you, lady." Vant gave her a smile that was mostly bared teeth. "Sorry you were disturbed." He turned back to Niall. "As for you . . ."
"This is my ten-command, you know." Jame slipped around him and perched on the chest at the foot of Niall's cot while Jorin dived under it and began happily to play with whatever he found there. "Now, what was it you saw?"
When the cadet only gawked at her, Mint answered.
"Lady, last winter while the rest of us stayed snug with the garrison at Gothregor (including you, Ten), Niall stowed away in a supply wagon and went south with the Host. He served as a messenger in the battle at the Cataracts. We don't know exactly what he saw there—he won't tell us—but it must have been awful. Now he's afraid that he'll fail Tentir because he can't stop the nightmares. He thinks only cowards have bad dreams."
Vant started to jeer, but Jame stopped him.
Not another Kest, she thought, lost for lack of the right word.
"I was at the Cataracts," she said. "It was terrible. The noise, the smell . . . the very ground shook. Then the Waster Horde came, wave on wave, breaking against the shield wall, until the grass was slimy with blood and all the horses screamed. The whole thing was a nightmare. Brier, you were there too, weren't you?"
In the shadows, the big Kendar stirred. "I was, but after the battle."
"So you missed the fun." Vant made it a sneer, as if glad at last to score a point against his rival.
"Fun?" Brier considered the word. "Not exactly. I was with the Southern Host when m'lord Pereden marched it out into the Wastes to meet the advancing Horde. Three million of them, some fifty thousand of us. Our center column clashed head on and was ripped apart. The sand drank our blood and the Wasters ate our flesh. I saw Commander Larch flayed and dismembered. It took her a long, long time to die. I was there when Pereden—" she paused, hunting for the right word, saying it at last with a curious twist—"fell. We didn't know that the left and right columns had survived. Those few of us who escaped joined one or the other of them and harried the Horde all the way to the Cataracts."
"Which is why," added Jame, "the Northern Host was able to reach the bottleneck at the Escarpment first. Otherwise, that would have been the end of us all."
There was silence for a moment as the three unlikely veterans remembered and the rest tried to imagine what horrors they had seen. For once, not even Vant could think of anything to say. Jame heard a murmur on the other side of the canvas wall and soft voices saying, "Hush!" The other ten-commands were listening.
Distant thunder grumbled and the air shifted restlessly. The walls stirred. Under the bed, Jorin engaged in mortal combat with a stray sock.
"Did you kill anyone in battle, lady?" asked Erim.
"Probably." Jame grimaced. "I had Kin-Slayer, y'see, and was trying to hack through the thick of things to give it to my brother. If ever a sword thirsted for blood, it's that one."
"And you actually managed to hang on to it?"
Vant, rallying, caused a ripple of nervous laughter. In practice, one way or another, Jame almost always managed to lose her weapon.
"This one I could barely get rid of," she answered grimly. "I tell you, that damn blade likes to kill, and it can cut through anything . . . if you know the trick."
The "trick" was to wear Father's emerald signet ring on one's sword-hand, as she had discovered by accident. She had tried to tell her brother, but didn't know if he had taken her seriously.
"Do you ever dream about it, lady?" asked Niall, looking at her askance. "The battle, I mean."
Jame considered. "Occasionally as a bloody muddle, which most of it was. Sometimes, though, it's all too clear. I have to get Kin-Slayer to my brother or he will die, but I don't know where he is and there are so many people in the way. Some of them are changers. They wear Tori's face and beg me to throw them the sword. When I don't, they change into my father and curse me: 'Child of darkness, filthy Shanir, die and be damned . . .' "
They were all staring at her.
"And then," she finished, somewhat lamely, "I wake up."
Quill's face had twisted with concentration. "Isn't there a song about a randon who shrieked all night long in his sleep before a battle, until his Kendar had to stuff tufts of wool in their ears? The next day he fought like a demon, but in silence because he was too hoarse to make a sound."
"I remember that one," said Killy eagerly. "He got behind the enemy and cut down a score of them before they even knew he was there. With everyone else roaring battle-cries, y'see, they didn't hear him until it was too late."
"Another Lawful Lie," said Vant scornfully.
"Maybe." Jame considered the story. "To me, though, it has the ring of truth."
"Then you don't think I'm a coward, lady?"
"Because you have nightmares? Of course not. Everyone has them. The more you see, the less these particular ones should bother you; but if you start running away from them, you may never stop."
Like Tori, in a way. He wasn't running now, but somehow he had been stopped dead in his tracks, and that wasn't good either.
She roused herself. "Enough. Go to sleep, all of you, and dream sweetly if you can. If you can't, well, it isn't the end of the world. And if you give Niall punishment duty for this," she added softly to Vant in passing, "you're a bigger fool than I thought . . . if that's possible."
A breath of fresh air met her on the stairs. As she reached the attic, the hole in the roof briefly flooded with light, followed at a slight interval by the thunder's growl. Jorin retreated to a corner; he disliked storms and hated getting wet. Jame crossed to the hole and leaned out of it.
The storm was approaching from the north, rumbling down the throat of the valley. Snake-tongues of lightning flickered across the sky, throwing the mountain sides into sharp relief and making the river gleam like its name.
Watching it come, Jame considered nightmares, specifically the one from which Niall's scream had woken her. No one now alive knew what had happened in that close, hot room, the night that Greshan had summoned his younger brother up to it; yet, somehow, the memory lingered, like the stink of the gorgeous coat that her uncle had worn, now resigned to a chest in his former apartment. Each dream brought her closer to some terrible truth. For herself, whatever it was, she felt she could endure it, but could Tori? It hadn't occurred to her until that night, when she had seen his eyes set in their father's terrified face, that it might also be dragging her brother along, one nightmare at a time, toward an ultimate horror.
Damn and blast. Tori was stronger than her in so many ways, but not in this.
The air fidgeted this way and that, now hot, now deliciously cool, lifting tendrils of Jame's loose hair. Leaves began to fret. Now came the wind, roaring in the tree tops, making boughs toss until the whole forest heaved like an ocean gone mad. A blinding flash, a boom like the end of time, and rain fell in a shower of icy arrows mixed with stinging hailstones.
Well, they would cope. Whatever haunted Tentir wasn't stronger than both of them, as long as they supported each other.
She stayed, drinking in the tumult, until at last the storm rumbled off down the Riverland, and one by one the stars crept out of hiding.
At breakfast, Niall still looked haggard but more in control of himself, answering her raised eyebrow with a slight, shy duck of his head. Talk and laughter moved freely back and forth across the hall, as if the previous night's storm had broken more than the oppressive heat. Only Vant looked sour, as if he had swallowed something nasty. Jame sat at the head of her table and Brier at the foot. They both tended to be quiet in company, but for the first time Jame felt included in the group even while it respected her reserve. She wondered if Brier Iron-thorn felt the same way.
Then she remembered: the Southron had said that she had been there when Pereden . . . fell. What an odd, ambiguous word. Did Timmon know? Should she tell him? Better not.
The day's first class—archery with a Jaran ten—passed without incident, except for Erim hitting the mark every time. His aim was indeed very good, almost uncanny, for someone who looked as if he shot at random from a truly awful pose.
Next came sword practice with the Danior, which again provided no surprises. As always, Jame was quickly disarmed.
"Next time maybe we should bind the hilt to your hand," said the randon in charge, not altogether joking.
After lunch came a work detail with an Edirr ten.
The largest of the quake fissures in the outer training field had been spanned half-way down with a wooden bridge. Normally, the steep ditch was dry, but the previous night's storm had sent a flash flood down it to the Silver, piling debris against the bridge's footing. Until the mess was cleared away, it was impossible to know if the structure had been damaged. Consequently, the two tens were set to removing the tangle of broken branches under the guidance of a red-faced sergeant.
It was hard, dirty work. Mud cemented the makeshift dam together and mud backed up against it, under a foot of murky water. Moreover, the sides of the fissure were slick with more of the same, where they weren't jagged with exposed boulders. Cadets kept slipping and falling while the sergeant got redder and redder with shouting at them to watch what they were doing and to stop playing silly buggers, dammit.
Then he was called up-field to help the horse-master. A stallion had gotten loose among the mares and must be captured before they, not being in season, kicked their eager suitor to pieces.
Dar started to climb out of the ditch, but an Edirr cadet pushed him back in. When he had scrambled up the opposite side, outraged, the Knorth all found themselves on one side and the Edirr on the other. There was a moment's speculative silence, then a grin that seemed to spread from face to face.
"Red clover, red clover, send Rue over!"
Rue plunged down the slope, plowed through the muddy water, and scrambled up the opposite side. At the top, the Edirr girl who had called caught and flung her back down to land with a great splash at the fissure's bottom. She rejoined her own side, muddy from head to foot.
"Red clover, red clover, send Honey over!" she called back to her opponent in a kind of throttled shout, as none of them wanted to attract attention.
Honey, in turn, was sent flying to a chorus of muted Knorth jeers.
Then Erim bulled his way up and through the enemy line. "I capture you," he said to Honey, and bore her back to the Knorth side.
Jame, Brier, and the Edirr ten-commander watched from the bridge, or rather the Edirr kept watch against the sergeant's return. If he had any hesitation about his role, it was only that he couldn't join in the fun.
Jame didn't know what to do. The cadets were clearly having a wonderful time, but they weren't doing the work assigned to them and would be in trouble if the sergeant caught them at it. "I should stop this," she said, "or shouldn't I?"
Brier gave her an impassive look. "You are master ten of your house," she said—that, and no more.
It hadn't been fair to ask her, and Jame knew it. She had to start making her own command decisions.
Swearing under her breath, she approached her cadets from behind and touched Dar on the shoulder. Before she could speak, he reached back and seized her, apparently thinking that she was the captured Honey bent on escape. The next moment, she was in mid-air. Sky and earth wheeled past, dotted with startled faces, and then the brown water at the ditch's bottom leaped up to meet her.
Jame emerged sputtering, mud in her eyes, her hair, her mouth. A rock in the river bed shifted under her hand as she tried to rise and she lurched forward again into the mire, face first. The cadets on both banks were staring down at her, appalled. She sat in the filthy water, feeling it seep through her clothes, considering her situation,
For Trinity's sake, Tori had said, don't make fools of us both.
Had she come to Tentir for this? What hope was there that she would do any better in future? Maybe she should give up, go back to Gothregor, stop trying to accomplish the impossible.
But was this really that much worse than the Women's Halls? Jame thought about that for a moment, then burst into laughter.
"Knot stitches," she said.
The sergeant returned, horrified to find his lord's sister sitting at the bottom of a muddy ditch, laughing like a lunatic. He didn't understand why she found a needlework phrase so funny. Neither did the cadets, but it was infectious. As they resumed work, one only had to catch another's eye and murmur "knot stitch" for them both to burst out in giggles.
It was in this high good humor and in wet, filthy clothes that the Knorth reported for the last lesson of the day. And that was where things began to go seriously wrong.
They should have been bound for a reading lesson—hard work for most but a welcome rest for Jame. Instead, they were told to clean up as best they could and then to report to a third story room in Old Tentir where none of them had ever been before.
Their destination overlooked the inner square, high enough to make some of the cadets turn pale. Gorbel's ten-command waited for them. The Caineron were jeering at the Knorths' muddy clothes when the Commandant entered, followed by a richly dressed, unfamiliar Highborn.
A surprised murmur ran through the Caineron ranks: "Corrudin."
"It's Corrudin, Lord Caldane's uncle and chief advisor."
"What's he doing here?"
If Gorbel knew, he didn't say. Jame thought she saw a flicker of alarm in his eyes, but he instantly hooded them, his face becoming as expressionless and dull as a toad's.
"Sit down, all of you. I see that some of you recognize our guest."
The Commandant's manner was as suave as ever, his half-smile as elusive and ironic, but he was wary too, and watchful. He reminded Jame of Jorin, feigning nonchalance before the pounce.
"M'lord Corrudin has gifted us with his presence today in response a certain . . . er . . . incident that took place during a recent lesson."
It was about the Senethar class, thought Jame as she and the other cadets settled crossed-legged on the floor, furtively tugging at wet clothes to ease their cling. Could this elegant, elderly Highborn be here to lecture the Caineron about their harassment of Brier Iron-thorn? Then she caught a fleeting smirk on the face of the Kendar whom she in turn had humiliated. No. Justice for the Southron wasn't on anyone's mind.
"Normally," the Commandant was saying, "this subject arises later in your training. However, since there are no fewer than three lordan currently at Tentir and some of you have already experienced their . . . er . . . effect, it was thought wise to bring up the topic early. This is for the benefit of you, the Kendar who serve with them. M'lord, if you will . . .?"
He invited the Highborn forward with a sweeping salute and withdrew to the shadows at the back of the room where he stood, a motionless, alert presence.
The Highborn advanced at his leisure, his dark purple robe, crusted with gold embroidery, swishing across the floor in the silence. His face was finer cut and more austere than most Caineron, his silvery hair slicked back from a sharp widow's peak. He looked far more like the leader of a house than his over-weight, over-bearing nephew. Jame wondered why Caldane was Lord Caineron and not his uncle, and whether Corrudin resented it. He didn't look like a man to suffer fools, gladly or otherwise.
"I thank Commandant Sharp-tongue for this opportunity," he said, "and for his faithful service to our house." His voice, smooth and melodious, made Jame twitch, as if at something just beyond her range of hearing. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gorbel's stubby hands tighten on his knees.
"As you Kendar know," he said, ignoring the two lordan, "you are bound by our god to obey the Highborn. Normally, you are given no choice in the matter just as, normally, you are given no choice in what house you serve. You stay where you are born." His gaze flickered over Brier, who returned it wooden-faced. "Now, it would follow, would it not, that you are bound to obey every command given to you—even if some are . . . ill-advised?"
Jame leaned forward, listening intently. Was Caldane's chief advisor about to warn them about Honor's Paradox, which Caldane himself was doing everything he could to circumvent?
"I do not speak of those orders issued by our liege lords, of course," Corrudin continued smoothly. "Who is the judge of honor, if not they? No, I refer to lesser Highborn, not so old or wise as their masters, whom they too must obey."
Cadets were nodding. Born to servitude, they liked to hear that all Highborn but a few also had limited power. Jame tried not to fidget. She suspected that this was all about her, but didn't yet see how.
"That said, it follows that as future randon, and as valuable assets to your respective houses, you must learn how to resist the folly, even the malice, of such minor Highborn as would misuse their power over you, as has recently occurred."
Ah, that was it. No wonder the Caineron boy had smirked.
"I believe a demonstration is in order." The Highborn turned suddenly to Gorbel. "Lordan, if you would oblige, give one of your comrades a foolish command."
Gorbel blinked and stirred, taken as much by surprise as Jame and the others, but hiding it better. For a moment he returned his great-uncle's sleek smile with a stony glower, and then he twisted around where he sat to regard his ten. His hooded eyes swept over them, and all but one failed to meet his stare. That one, a Highborn, grinned back at him, but his amusement quickly faltered.
"No," he said, with a laugh shaken by disbelief.
"Yes. Kibben, stand on your head."
The cadet gaped at him, then lurched to his feet, his face twisting between astonishment and horror. Jame recognized him as the master of the Kendar boy whom she had made pay for Brier's harassment. Neither master nor servant was smiling now.
"Resist," murmured Corrudin. It was more than encouragement.
"You heard me," said Gorbel. Sweat trickled down his face, channeled slantwise by the heavy lines of his scowl. "Do it."
The cadet staggered between the Cainerons' opposing wills. Both ten-commands had scrambled to their feet and were backing away from the conflict.
Also instinctively in retreat, Jame shot a glance at the silent figure at the back of the room. Why didn't the Commandant stop this? All three were Highborn of his house, and two were cadets presumably under his protection as the current master of the college.
Then she remembered Sheth standing outside the door that first night while within her brother fought with Lord Ardeth for his very soul, and again, in the hall when the Randir had tempted Harn Grip-hard to become the beast that he feared he was. Here again was that cool assessment of power, Lord Caineron's chief advisor against the Caineron's future lord. If either should break, better here, better now, than later when so many others might fall with them. Such had been the bitter lesson of the White Hills, when her own father's ruin had nearly brought down the entire Kencyrath.
Kibben made an odd, choking noise. He bent, put his hands and the top of his head on the floor, and swung up his legs. For a moment he tottered upside-down, the long tails of his foppish jacket falling into his face. Then he crashed over like a tree falling, all of a piece. The wooden floor shook.
Gorbel smiled. "Good boy," he said softly.
Suddenly Jame realized something that perhaps she should have guessed before: these Highborn cadets weren't Gorbel's friends. They were his father's spies. No wonder Caldane had received news so quickly of the training incident and sent his uncle to assess the situation.
Corrudin stood unmoved. He might never have exerted himself if not for the flicker of thwarted rage in his eyes, quickly masked. However, Jame had seen it. He hadn't expected to lose against his lumpish, despised grand-nephew. Now he knew, as did she, in whose blood the true power ran; and for all his smooth veneer, that knowledge infuriated him.
"Well," he said lightly, as Kibben's servant helped the shaken Highborn to his feet and tried to prevent him from again attempting a head-stand. "There you see a perfect example of misused authority. My thanks, lordan, for your assistance. However, we have yet to see how such abuse effects a Kendar. So, another demonstration. My lady, if you please."
He turned to Jame and drew her forward with languid wave of his hand. Then he did the same to Brier Iron-thorn.
"I think this time I will propose the order," he said, slowly circling them, beginning again to enjoy himself.
Jame's skin crawled. This was going to be bad. She met Brier's eyes, as green and cool as pond moss, and as lacking in expression. Only weeks of observation told her that the Southron was braced to show no emotion, whatever happened.
"My," said the Highborn, still circling, looking them up and down. "How dirty you both are, but especially you, my lady." A ripple of nervous laughter went through the cadets. Under it, Corrudin's voice sank to a murmur. "Been playing in the mud, have we? How appropriate, given all that your house has dragged us through. I was in the White Hills. I saw. Blood, and mud, and more blood, pooling in the hollows where the wounded drown in it. There also the honor of your house died, as we see yet again in your presence here. And you, Iron-thorn, were once one of us. Your mother died in our service. You disgrace her memory."
The Kendar stirred, but silver-gray eyes locked and held jade green: Look at me, not at him. Don't listen. Don't react. Don't give the bastard the satisfaction.
Corrudin made a slight sound of annoyance.
"So you are theirs now, body and soul. Very well. It is only fitting, then, that you kiss their filthy boots. Girl, give this turn-collar the order."
Jame lurched as his will crushed down on her. Such power . . .! How had Gorbel contested it? But then he hadn't been its primary target. As if from a great distance, she could hear the cadet Kibben struggling to obey Gorbel's last command, over and over again. Between them, grand-nephew and grand-uncle had broken him, perhaps beyond repair.
"You heard me," Corrudin whispered in her ear, a smile lurking in his voice. "Do it, you stupid little bitch."
She turned on him. "Back. Off."
The Highborn stiffened. His look of astonishment changed to utter horror as, step by step, he found himself retreating backward towards the window. The low sill caught him behind the knees. He flailed for a moment, trying to regain his balance, then fell. They heard him hit the tin roof of the arcade two flights below, then the ground.
Gorbel gave Jame a slow, sleepy smile. "Good girl," he said.
Considerable confusion ensued.
Cadets rushed to the window and those hardy enough to brave the height leaned out to gape down. Alarmed cries and questions rose from the square below. The cadets answered in a babble of shouts that enlightened no one and, in future days, gave rise to some truly startling rumors.
Meanwhile, freed from restraint, Kibben stood on his head in the corner.
Jame hadn't moved. She felt as if she had blown out her brains with one searing act of will power. Trinity, where had that come from . . . and was it apt to happen again? What she had done to the Randir Tempter was nothing compared to this. It had been like a berserker flare, but much more focused and ruthless. If she had ordered the very stones of Tentir to collapse on them all, perhaps they would have.
Brier held her elbow, steadying her.
"Lady, sometimes you worry me."
Jame gave a shaky laugh. "Not half as much as I worry myself."
The Commandant winnowed through the swarm of cadets, separating Caineron from Knorth—not that either stunned house had thought yet to turn on the other.
"This . . . er . . . lesson is concluded, and with it the class day. Dismissed. Someone, please escort Cadet Kibben to the infirmary, if you can get him upright. You," he said to Jame, "wait for me in my office."
Only then did the consequences of her act strike her. Sweet Trinity, he was going to expel her immediately. No, the entire Randon Council would set her up as the butt for archery practice and then award prizes for the best shots. Erim was a cinch to win that one, if they let him compete.
"All right?" asked Brier. It took Jame a moment to realize what she meant: If I let go, will you fall over?
"I think so," she said, somewhat confusedly, and the Southron withdrew her support.
The cadets filed out, shooting her stunned looks in passing. They took Kibben with them, horizontal, one cadet at his head, another at his feet, while he continued to grope desperately for the floor. Only when everyone had gone did Jame realize that she had no idea where the Commandant's office was.
Well, that wasn't quite true: he sometimes reviewed the cadets from a second story balcony. That might be attached either to his living quarters or to his office, or perhaps to both. In fact, leaning out the window, she could see it below, to the left. Until she meant to cap her day's exploits with a demonstration of wall-scaling, she needed a stair. That should be easy enough to find. After all, her ten had used one to reach the third floor.
However, she hadn't taken into account Old Tentir's confusing innards, or her own rattled wits. Once away from the windows and daylight, she quickly became lost in the maze of dusty corridors. This was ridiculous, she thought. After all, as the Talisman she had mastered the layout of an entire city. However, complex though it was, Tai-tastigon hadn't been deliberately built to bewilder. Here, even straight hallways seemed to take a perverse pleasure in wandering. Where was Graykin when she needed him? Dammit, she was going to be late for her own expulsion.
A dingy, long tailed rat made her jump as it broke cover and scurried down the passage away from her.
Suddenly, a great paw of a hand, all claws, shot out of a swinging panel down by the floor, seized the rat, and snatched it back inside. Jame hadn't realized where she was, much less that the feeding flap to Bear's prison was double-hinged. She knelt and cautiously pushed it open a crack. A gust of hot, foul air breathed through it into her face. She could see Bear's massive form hunched against the glow of the fireplace. He bent his shaggy head to what he held in his hands. The rat screamed once, and then was silent. Jame eased the panel shut on the sound of strong teeth ripping wetly at the small, furry carcass and crunching its bones.
Around the next corner came a glimmer of daylight. Jame followed it to a window which again overlooked the inner square. For all her wandering, she had ended up in the room next to the one where she had started out. On the other hand, the Commandant's balcony was now directly below her, one story down. She surveyed the square. In this, the free period before dinner, it was nearly empty.
The Coman cadet from the Falconer's class whom she now knew as Gari crossed the arena, surrounded to the waist by a swarm of bouncing grasshoppers. He didn't seem to have any control over what kind of insect he attracted, although they did seem in some way to reflect his current mood. A cry of dismay greeted him as he entered his barracks. They shouldn't complain, thought Jame. The last time, after a particularly miserable work-detail cleaning latrines, it had been a swarm of stink-beetles.
Swinging her legs over the window ledge, she dropped lightly onto the balcony.
"Most people use the door," said the Commandant's voice from inside.
"Sorry, ran." Jame brushed aside a filmy curtain and entered, wet boots squelching, leaving a trail of muddy prints. "I got lost."
It was a large room, indirectly lit by windows on either side of the balcony. These were shaded with taut, peach-colored cloth, probably old tent canvas, vertically slashed to allow the breeze to edge through. The filtered light cast a mellow glow over walls covered with exquisitely detailed murals.
The Commandant lounged in a chair slightly back from one of the windows, his long, elegantly booted legs stretched out before him and crossed at the ankles. Silver flashed: he was whittling a bit of wood with a small knife. Although it was hard to tell with his face in shadow, Jame thought that he sounded tired.
"This is the Map Room," he said, with a languid wave of his hand. "Here you see accurate depictions of all our major battles on Rathillien, and in the cabinets below are accounts of the participants. Yes, that one is the Cataracts."
The mural in question occupied a large portion of the northern wall. Jame recognized Hurlen, that town of wooden towers built on many islets at the convergence of the Silver and the Tardy. There was the Upper Meadow where the Host had camped; there, the Lower Huddles, along which she had been riding when the Caineron charge had come over the crest on top of her; there, off to the left, the mysterious, lethal Heart of the Woods where her brother and Pereden had fought.
Looking closer, she saw tiny figures including one in black, repeated at different places in the field. By their growing size, she could trace her brother's progress through the conflict, except that several times he appeared to be two places at once.
"That is one of the mysteries of the Cataracts," said the Commandant, watching her. "Who was the rider in black on a white horse who suddenly appeared in the midst of the battle? My lord Caldane claims that the High Lord sent a decoy into the field to lessen his own chances of being killed. Why, then, a white horse, when everyone knows Torisen's mount is black?"
"That was by accident," said Jame, still looking at the map. "So was my presence in the Caineron charge. I was just trying to get across the field. Also, I'm the one who . . . er . . . borrowed your warhorse later. Sorry, but it really was an emergency."
"I will take your word for it and not press to know why you, of all people, tried to ride Cloud bareback. Interesting. That answers quite a few questions, if not why you arrived there and again here wearing a Tastigon knife-fighter's jacket."
"It's called a d'hen and with due respect, ran, that's all I will tell you about it."
"I see." He leaned back, hands dropping with their work into his lap. "Now, did I or did I not request that you not break any more instructors?"
Jame swallowed. "You did, ran. Sorry. Is he badly hurt?"
"A cracked collarbone and many bruises. Worse, only by concentrating can he prevent himself from backing up, regardless of what lies behind him. I would say that Kibben is avenged, and then some. Out of curiosity, may I ask what happened?"
So he hadn't been close enough to hear. Jame told him what Corrudin had tried to make her do. "It would have destroyed Brier," she concluded, "and she's already been hurt far too much by my kind. It might also have destroyed me. I suddenly thought, maybe that's what he wants, and be damned if I'm going to be forced into it."
"A good instinct," murmured the randon. "It was his desire, no, his demand, that he be allowed to try. A powerful Shanir, that, and dangerous. After all, he brings out the worst in everyone. Truth for truth, Knorth. You would have done my house a service if you had broken his neck, but then we would probably have had civil war. There will be trouble enough as it is, but that needn't concern you. He may have also influenced the worst in me when I allowed the test; however, I had just heard that you were sitting in a mud puddle, having hysterics."
"And, as lordan, if I should break, better here than later."
He gave her a shadowy, fleeting smile. "I see you understand."
"But ran, what I did to Corrudin, whether he deserved it or not, wasn't that also a gross abuse of power? I can't seem to get it right. First I can't exert control over an arrogant twit like Vant; then I force a Shanir Highborn to commit defenestration. Maybe I don't belong here after all."
"With that power, where would you go?" He spoke softly, a voice out the gathering shadows, giving shape to her own fears. "Untrained as you are, who is safe against you? Not enemies, not friends, perhaps not even own your brother."
He shifted to prop his chin on his fist. She felt the pressure of his assessing eyes and the keen mind behind them at work on the problem. On her. "It seems to me," he said, "that you hate your own blood and its inherent power. Perhaps that mistrust is warranted. Dark things stir in you, girl. I sense them. But part of what you are is also the blessing, or the curse, of our god. Your position in the Kencyrath is unique. You are a Shanir, a Highborn, the Knorth Lordan, and a female. If you don't learn how to control your innate abilities, either they will destroy you or you will fall back into the trap that you came here to escape. Do you see another course?"
"N-no, ran." And she didn't, short of leaving her people behind forever. But if she returned to Tai-tastigon as the Talisman, she would still be herself. If you start running away, she had told Niall, speaking of nightmare, you may never stop. The same held true here, even more so.
He leaned back again, into shadow. "Tentir is a testing ground. If it eases your mind, I promise that by the time you leave, you will know beyond a doubt if you have succeeded or failed."
Jame's heart gave a leap.
"Then I'm not expelled, ran?"
"No. You are riding the rathorn now, to what fate I have no idea, but it would be unwise of me to interfere. I believe, however, that I should assign you extra duty for damaging the arcade roof, say, by repairing it. Please leave the normal way, through the door. The college has had enough excitement for the time being."
Her foot was on the threshold when he spoke again, out of the gathering darkness:
"By the way, you also should know that the Randir Tempter has returned to her duties at Tentir—prematurely, I would have thought, but here she is. Take care, Knorth. She has no love for your house or for you."
"Yes, ran. Thank you." She saluted him and left.
Only on the way out did she recognize what the Commandant had been carving. It was a little, wooden soldier.
This time, she found the stair easily and was descending to the main hall when a mound of dirty clothes on a pair of muddy legs entered from New Tentir. Jame wasn't sure about the legs, but she recognized the mud.
"Rue?"
The clothes dropped and there was the border cadet waist deep in them, gaping at her.
"Lady! You're still here!"
"Of course I am. Oh, you mean I haven't been kicked out yet. No, but we have to repair the roof."
"That's all?" A huge grin split the girl's face. "My, won't Vant be surprised."
"What's all this about?" Jame asked, indicating the sprawling heap.
Rue shrugged. "Vant gave our ten punishment duty for the mud fight. It's laundry day down in the fire timber hall, and we have to wash the entire barracks' dirty underwear."
At that moment, Vant himself entered the hall. "You, shortie, what're these clothes doing on the floor? Can't stay out of the dirt, eh?" Then he saw Jame, and turned his start into a sideways salute with eyes averted. "Your possessions are packed, lady. We can have you on the road to Gothregor before dinner."
"Oh, can you." Jame finished her descent at a leisurely stroll. She had no impulse whatsoever to lose her temper: after Corrudin, this seemed like a minor affair and Vant, for all his six feet of arrogant bluster, a bug not worth squashing. "Such unseemly haste, but then every time you turn around, you apparently expect to find me gone. Well, now you can relax. At least this side of the autumn cull, I'm not going anywhere."
Others of her ten had entered as she spoke, each with arms full of laundry. Vant was staring at her now, open-mouthed.
"You throw Lord Caineron's chief advisor out a third story window, and the Commandant doesn't expel you? Is he insane?"
"You may ask him that, with my blessing. In the meantime, I rescind your punishment order. Each ten will do its own washing, as usual. And in future you will clear any such order with me before you issue it. I'll be making a list"—as soon as I can find a reliable master ten to consult, she thought—"specifying what duties are yours and what are mine."
Vant stood rigid, staring straight ahead. "Lady, I can't read."
Jame remembered that he had indeed lost most of his points in the entry trials on that score.
"Learn," she said, and walked out.
Rue followed her, trailing clothes as she sorted out the muddiest of them. "What about yours, lady?"
Jame plucked at her shirt, feeling it unglue from her skin and bits of half-dry mud rattle down between her breasts. Head to foot, she was a mess.
"I need a bath," she said, "or better yet, a swim."